This paper examines the experience of Australian women during recent recessions in order to construct a framework within which the policy response to the current recession can be assessed and improved. The recessions of the early 1980s and the early 1990s are examined and compared with the brief experience so far of the present recession.
In the early 1980’s Australia had a highly progressive, individual based income tax and families received support for dependent children in the form of universal family allowances.
The research highlights widespread agreement that the Government should introduce funding for paid parental leave, as part of the next Federal Budget. 67%, or 2 out of 3 respondents, support the broad proposal that all women should have access to government funded maternity leave.
Since the 1980s the introduction of income tests on family payments has transformed Australia’s progressive individual income tax into a system with strong elements of joint taxation and a rate scale that has an inverted U-shaped profile – the highest marginal tax rates apply across low to average incomes and to the incomes of married mothers as second earners.
Background to Individual Budgets - Longstanding commitment to flexible, person-centred care in policy from 1980s. Existing development of direct payments, but low take up by older people.
In its submission to the Henry Inquiry into the Future of Australia’s Tax System, the National Foundation for Australian Women calls on government to reform the Age Pension by creating a centralised retirement insurance plan for low-income earners and increasing the single pension rate, and to introduce policies to encourage women to work such as a national paid parental leave scheme.
Lower income earners, both male and female, cannot hope to save an adequate sum from the Superannuation Guarantee and voluntary savings. Their savings can however supplement the Age Pension set at an adequate level.
The origins of the NFAW role lay in the process of national consultations with women and their organisations during 2006 and 2007 on the impacts on their working lives of the former Government’s changes to the industrial relations system (WorkChoices). In consequence early NFAW discussions about a national system of paid maternity or paternity leave were framed around industrial relations policy.
The Office for Women has asked the WomenSpeak Alliance and the National Foundation for Australian Women to prepare analyses and responses to the Review of Australia’s Future Tax System on matters affecting the wellbeing of women.